Marketing
Marketing is a social and managerial function associated selling of product with the interchange of material and to satisfy the customer.
Definitions
Marketing, as suggested by the American Marketing Association, is "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders".In order to be successful in the marketing world, you must possess two key qualities: patience and consistancy.
Another definition, perhaps simpler and more universal, is this: "Marketing is the ongoing process of moving people closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow...or conform to someone else's products, services or values. Simply, if it doesn't facilitate a "sale" then it's not marketing."
Philip Kotler in his earlier books defines as: "Marketing is human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes".
Marketing-"taking actions to define, create, grow, develop, maintain, defend and own markets".
An approach to business that seeks to identify, anticipate and satisfy customers needs.
History
The practice of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself. Whenever a person has an item or is capable of performing a service, and he or she seeks another person who might want that item or service, that person is involved in marketing. A Market was originally simply a gathering place where people with a supply of items or capacity to perform a service could meet with those who might desire the items or services, perhaps at a pre arranged time.
Such meetings embodied all the aspects of today's marketing methods, although in an informal way. Sellers and buyers sought to understand each other's needs, capacities, and psychology, all with the goal of getting the exchange of items or services to take place. Open air markets throughout the world, with buyers and sellers freely mingling, are today's example of this basic activity. Today's New York Stock Exchange had its humble beginnings as an open air market located at Wall Street in New York City.
Introduction
Prior to the advent of market research most companies were product-focused, employing teams of salespeople to push their products into or onto the market, regardless of market desire. A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization instead first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product or service. Marketing theory and practice is justified on the belief that customers use a product/service because they have a need, or because a product/service has a perceived benefit.
Two major aspects of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management).
Once a marketer has converted the prospective buyer, base management marketing takes over. The process for base management shifts the marketer to building a relationship, nurturing the links, enhancing the benefits that sold the buyer in the first place, and improving the product/service continuously to protect her business from competitive encroachments.
For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the four "Ps" must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market. Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don't want is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for. Marketers hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing management is the practical application of this process. The offer is also an important addition to the 4P's theory.
Skill Sets
Marketers have 4 main skill sets that they bring to an enterprise:
1. Opportunity Identification
True marketing begins before there is a product to sell. Many people think marketing is just selling whatever comes out of the manufacturing plant. It's the job of marketing to decide WHAT comes out of the manufacturing plant in the first place. Before a business can make money there must be opportunities for money to be made and it's marketing's job to define what those opportunities are. Marketers analyze markets, market gaps, trends, products, competition, and distribution channels to come up with opportunities to make money.
2. Competitive strategy/positioning
Markets consists of groups of competitors competing for a customer's business. The job of marketing is to decide how to create a defensible sustainable competitive advantage against competitors. Marketers conceive strategies, tactics, and business models to make it hard if not impossible for competition to take away customers from their business.
3. Demand generation/management
It's the job of marketing to create and sustain demand for a company's products. Marketers manage demand for a company's products by influencing the probability and frequency of their customer's purchase behavior.
4. Sales
The ultimate goal of marketing is to make money for a business. In most companies sales is a different discipline and department from marketing. But in order for salespeople to have any long term success in a company they must be led by marketing. The better job a company does of identifying opportunities, creating a differential sustainable competitive advantage, and generating demand for their products the easier it will be for salespeople to make sales.
Marketing is a social and managerial function associated selling of product with the interchange of material and to satisfy the customer.
Definitions
Marketing, as suggested by the American Marketing Association, is "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders".In order to be successful in the marketing world, you must possess two key qualities: patience and consistancy.
Another definition, perhaps simpler and more universal, is this: "Marketing is the ongoing process of moving people closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow...or conform to someone else's products, services or values. Simply, if it doesn't facilitate a "sale" then it's not marketing."
Philip Kotler in his earlier books defines as: "Marketing is human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes".
Marketing-"taking actions to define, create, grow, develop, maintain, defend and own markets".
An approach to business that seeks to identify, anticipate and satisfy customers needs.
History
The practice of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself. Whenever a person has an item or is capable of performing a service, and he or she seeks another person who might want that item or service, that person is involved in marketing. A Market was originally simply a gathering place where people with a supply of items or capacity to perform a service could meet with those who might desire the items or services, perhaps at a pre arranged time.
Such meetings embodied all the aspects of today's marketing methods, although in an informal way. Sellers and buyers sought to understand each other's needs, capacities, and psychology, all with the goal of getting the exchange of items or services to take place. Open air markets throughout the world, with buyers and sellers freely mingling, are today's example of this basic activity. Today's New York Stock Exchange had its humble beginnings as an open air market located at Wall Street in New York City.
Introduction
Prior to the advent of market research most companies were product-focused, employing teams of salespeople to push their products into or onto the market, regardless of market desire. A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization instead first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product or service. Marketing theory and practice is justified on the belief that customers use a product/service because they have a need, or because a product/service has a perceived benefit.
Two major aspects of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management).
Once a marketer has converted the prospective buyer, base management marketing takes over. The process for base management shifts the marketer to building a relationship, nurturing the links, enhancing the benefits that sold the buyer in the first place, and improving the product/service continuously to protect her business from competitive encroachments.
For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the four "Ps" must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market. Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don't want is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for. Marketers hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing management is the practical application of this process. The offer is also an important addition to the 4P's theory.
Skill Sets
Marketers have 4 main skill sets that they bring to an enterprise:
1. Opportunity Identification
True marketing begins before there is a product to sell. Many people think marketing is just selling whatever comes out of the manufacturing plant. It's the job of marketing to decide WHAT comes out of the manufacturing plant in the first place. Before a business can make money there must be opportunities for money to be made and it's marketing's job to define what those opportunities are. Marketers analyze markets, market gaps, trends, products, competition, and distribution channels to come up with opportunities to make money.
2. Competitive strategy/positioning
Markets consists of groups of competitors competing for a customer's business. The job of marketing is to decide how to create a defensible sustainable competitive advantage against competitors. Marketers conceive strategies, tactics, and business models to make it hard if not impossible for competition to take away customers from their business.
3. Demand generation/management
It's the job of marketing to create and sustain demand for a company's products. Marketers manage demand for a company's products by influencing the probability and frequency of their customer's purchase behavior.
4. Sales
The ultimate goal of marketing is to make money for a business. In most companies sales is a different discipline and department from marketing. But in order for salespeople to have any long term success in a company they must be led by marketing. The better job a company does of identifying opportunities, creating a differential sustainable competitive advantage, and generating demand for their products the easier it will be for salespeople to make sales.
Marketing is a Technology
Is Marketing an Art or Science?
The big debate in the marketing discipline is whether marketing is an art or a science. Marketing is a technology or set of technologies. Marketing can be neither an art nor a science because arts and sciences only seek to explain natural phenomena. The objective of marketing is to manipulate and influence natural phenemena to create practical unnatural outcomes. Specifically to manufacture, grow, sustain and defend markets. Marketers use their knowledge of economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology and strategy to arrange and control the external environment to his advantage.
Four Ps (marketing mix)
In popular usage, "marketing" is the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning that recognizes that marketing is customer centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. E. Jerome McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets of activities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language.
The four Ps are:
Product: The Product management and Product marketing aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user’s needs and wants.
Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts.
Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
Placementor distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to “where” a product or service is sold, e.g. in which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people, women, men, etc.).
These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix. A marketer can use these variables to craft a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or B2B marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.
Seven Ps
As well as the standard four Ps (Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place), services marketing calls upon an extra three, totalling seven and known together as the extended marketing mix. These are:
People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service. As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person. Fellow customers are also sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event).
Process: This is the process(es) involved in providing a service and the behaviour of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.
Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether or not to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies or testimonials.
The 8 P's
As well as the other 7 Packaging has been added to this list by some people. The rationale is that it is very important how the product is presented to the customer, and the packaging is often the first contact that a customer has with a product.
AND THEN THERE WERE 9 "P"'s...
"PHILOSOPHY" is the potential 9th P of marketing. Products (or services) should reflect the underlying philosophy or ethos of the organization. It should also be clear what the philosophy behind the introduction of the particular product is, as well. In his book, "Meeting Need", Ian Bruce explains this concept as it relates to marketing for charities. It also applies to other products and services
Customer focus
Most companies today have a customer orientation (also called customer focus). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on customer needs. Generally there are two ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach and the product innovation approach.
In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no point spending R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs.
The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a product or idea that will allow for a high amount of sales for that product and related products. Marketers believe that by finding or creating the next big thing they will spark a cultural revolution that results in this sales increase.
Product focus
In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that a profitable market segment(s) exists for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they will buy in the future. It is claimed that if Thomas Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation. Many purists doubt whether this is really a form of marketing orientation at all, because of the ex post status of consumer research. Some even question whether it is marketing.
Process focus
Over the last few years it has become evident that innovation of one product, or one service, is seldom cost-effective. The problem is that innovation is expensive and it takes time. By the time a single innovated product (or service) gets to market, competitors are generally catching up. Sometimes they have already trumped it. Sure, there are occasional single product luck-outs, such as the i-Pod; but they are few and far between.
The key to making innovation happen on a reliable and sustainable basis, and profitably taking it to market, is innovating Processes, rather than individual products. Innovating the processes that design, produce and take products (or services) to market builds ongoing competitive advantage and increases returns on both innovation and marketing investments substantially.
It has been suggested that Process should be the 5th "P" of marketing because, when customer-driven process improvement is integrated with the "4 Ps," marketing success is greatly increased.
Criticism of marketing
Some aspects of marketing, especially promotion, are the subject of criticism. It is especially problematic in classical economic theory, which is based on the assumption that supply and demand are independent. However, product promotion is an attempt coming from the supply side to influence demand. In this way producer market power is attained as measured by profits that would not be realized under a free market. Then the argument follows that non-free markets are imperfect and lead to production and consumption of suboptimal amounts of the product.
Critics acknowledge that marketing has legitimate uses in connecting goods and services to the consumers who want them. Critics also point out that marketing techniques have been used to achieve morally dubious ends by businesses, governments and criminals. Critics see a systemic social evil inherent in marketing. Marketing is accused of creating ruthless exploitation of both consumers and workers by treating people as commodities whose purpose is to consume.
Most marketers believe that marketing, like any other technology, is amoral. It can be used for good or evil purposes, but the technique itself is ethically neutral.
